Forgive this self-promotion, but since this column
by Dave Brown in the Ottawa Citizen featuresÂ my article prominently, I
cannot resist.Â Â Brown is one of the leading critics of family courts
and their cronies in the mainstream media (apparently the Citizen is a fairly
liberal newspaper), and we should publicize his work and support him as much as
possible.

Last week a man was welcomed back to his west- end Ottawa home after
almost 10 months under a restraining order issued by a system that often
seems designed to tear families apart.

The handling of this case by a domestic violence court was bizarre. In
this column April 11, such courts were referred to not only as
abominations, but in cases like this -- goofy.

With the appearance of the latest issue of P.S., the journal of the
American Political Science Association, I feel less alone in focusing on
the dangers and excesses of specialty courts. By publishing a work by
Stephen Baskerville, a professor at Howard University in Washington, the
association is acknowledging this is an area that needs attention.

For the professor, a leading campaigner for fathers and families, it
meant his work had passed the test of peer review. Much of the thinking
that drives the domestic court system is based on psychological
publications that have not had peer review.

In his treatise, Baskerville makes the point that the unchallenged
growth of the family court system in the past four decades is threatening
us all. Because they are so free-wheeling and offer so few protections,
they have become the most powerful courts, with the ability to reach
deepest into the community. They can and do reach right into our homes and
bedrooms.

They can ruin the lives of people who aren't charged with anything.
Often they are people judging other people on whether or not they are good
people. The definition of good is in the hands of the sitting judge.

Baskerville says these courts have a vested interest in being
overburdened because that calls for expansion. The main beneficiaries of
such growth are those who toil in or on the fringes of the legal
community.

He quotes Charles Dickens: "The one great principle of the law is to
make business for itself." Then he describes courts as a growth industry.
In his view, the natural resources being eaten up by the family court
industry include fatherhood and the family unit.

His academic study draws its conclusions from a huge overview, and says
the situation is similar throughout the industrialized world. My focus on
individual cases is intended to show what can happen to any of us. There's
little protection once a specialty court focuses attention on you. These
courts get around annoyances such as burden of proof, presumption of
innocence and rules of evidence.

Baskerville says they violate the American Constitution. In past
columns, I've asked whatever happened to Canada's Charter of Rights and
Freedoms.

Even if you win you're burned. In the case I reported in April, the
husband and wife made a trip to the Ottawa courthouse to plead for relief.
They wanted to explain how his medications caused a reaction that
frightened her so she called police. He was jailed, charged and dealt a
restraining order. Unable to go back to his home, he couldn't help with
the children. One was ill and slated for surgery.

The court allowed him to return home until April 30, but after that
date the stay-away restrictions would kick back in. In effect, the court
was saying he was so dangerous he couldn't be allowed near his own home,
but let him go back temporarily because he was needed. I still can't think
of a better word than goofy.

The couple learned Nov. 19 that the charge of domestic assault was
withdrawn. For 10 months the state was practically in their bedroom, and
then withdrew without so much as a sorry 'bout that. The damage? They
worry their legal bill will be in the $5,000 range. He says his home-based
business was put on hold by the restraining order and figures those losses
at "tens of thousands."

She says the system moved into their lives and did nothing to help. The
idea seemed to be to destroy. How could the system claim it was helping
her, she wants to know, when it turned her into a single mom with a
disabled child for 10 months? Nobody offered hands-on help.

She says she gave police a statement when she was frightened and angry.
Information to be used as evidence in a court should be gathered when
people are calm, she says.

In the U.S., Baskerville reports, there are 13 times more agents
enforcing child support than drug laws.